My little addiction to live edge furniture started in 2013 with a trip to a local, one man show saw mill in our town in search of a large timber to use for a mantle over our wood stove. The owner suggested a 6″ thick by 12′ long by 15″ deep hunk of kiln dried ponderosa pine that had the natural bark edge on one side. It was a pretty burly piece of wood and I only needed it to be 7’6″ long so he cut the remaining 4’6″ off. I had to buy the whole 12′ length so Brian, the mill owner, suggested sawing the offcut in half which left me with 2, 3″ thick by 15″ deep by 4’6″ long slabs to be used for another purpose… Like a bench or coffee table. What a great idea! That’s when my creative wheels started to spin and I realized the potential of live edge wood. I even happen to have a video from the trip to the mill that day because I was like a little kid in the candy shop brimming with excitement! For some reason I just thought it was the coolest place! I can really get excited about silly things sometimes, especially when it comes to seeing how things are produced…and large machinery is involed!

Anyway, back to the mantle. All that I did with the large timber was sand it and clear coat it with multiple layers of Deft Clear Satin Spray.

The mantle looked like this once it was installed. I think the natural color is a nice contrast with the darker ledgestone.

It looks like this now with the wood stove installed. ↓

Then, I used the off cuts that I told you about to make two benches.

Basically, I just sanded the slabs down, stained them with my favorite “go to” gel stain, and finished it with the Deft Clear Satin Spray like I did with the mantle.

I ordered 14″ hairpin legs online and simply attached them to the bottom with 1 1/2″ wood screws.

Then, in 2014 I designed and built a spec house to sell and I used the same sawmill to purchase more kiln dried ponderosa with a skirl edge in thinner slabs to use for siding the gables on the home. Boy I tell you what, it looks sharp installed! The only downfall was how heavy the planks were. The individual siding pieces were about 20′ long x 15″ deep x 1 1/2″ thick. I totally threw my back out moving them around to stain them before installation(ouch!). Here is the end result though… Pretty cool!

My husband and I were really happy with the way the siding turned out on the spec house; so last spring when it came time to build a shop on our property, we decided to use the live edge siding… Here’s a sneak peek. I’ll write a post about the shop soon! (Can’t wait to share it with y’all!)

With the leftover siding from the shop, I made the tops for these stacking tables.

You can click this link to be redirected to the post about the stacking tables.

I recently used some more of this wood to make the tops for some simple plywood nightstands for our master bedroom.

They are pretty rustic, but they work great! I bought the hairpin legs from Philly Fabrication on Etsy.

Did you notice the valance? Yup, more live edge… Have I taken this too far? Somebody tell me if I have, cause I’m just not tired of it yet!

Thanks for taking the time to read my silly posts about my creative endeavors! My hope is that it will inspire you to be creative, too…